Episode Number
10408
Episode Show Notes / Description
The August 5, 2026, edition of the Closing Market Report provides a comprehensive overview of commodity markets, sustainable energy integration, and agricultural weather. The program begins with a review of daily market prices before transitioning to an interview with agricultural economist Ed Usset, who analyzes crop conditions ahead of the upcoming USDA production report and offers pricing strategies for the approaching harvest. Next, Madhu Khanna discusses the SCAPES project and the economic viability of agrivoltaics, explaining how shade tolerance and regional climates dictate the success of co-locating crops with solar panels. The episode concludes with a detailed weather outlook from meteorologist Drew Lerner, who examines El Niño's impact on global growing regions, including Asia and the U.S. Corn Belt.
01:57 Ag Markets with Ed Usset, University of Minnesota
08:33 Understanding the Economics Agrivoltaics
14:58 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc.
01:57 Ag Markets with Ed Usset, University of Minnesota
08:33 Understanding the Economics Agrivoltaics
14:58 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc.
Transcript
cmr260805
The August 5, 2026, edition of the Closing Market Report provides a comprehensive overview of commodity markets, sustainable energy integration, and agricultural weather. The program begins with a review of daily market prices before transitioning to an interview with agricultural economist Ed Usset, who analyzes crop conditions ahead of the upcoming USDA production report and offers pricing strategies for the approaching harvest. Next, Madhu Khanna discusses the SCAPES project and the economic viability of agrivoltaics, explaining how shade tolerance and regional climates dictate the success of co-locating crops with solar panels. The episode concludes with a detailed weather outlook from meteorologist Drew Lerner, who examines El Niño's impact on global growing regions, including Asia and the U.S. Corn Belt.
01:57 Ag Markets with Ed Usset, University of Minnesota
08:33 Understanding the Economics Agrivoltaics
14:58 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc.
---
Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report for the fifth day of August 2026. I’m Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.
Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Ed Usset, he is an agricultural economist at the University of Minnesota. Greg Johnson is away from the office for the afternoon. We’ll take a look at agrivoltaics, or the practice of intercropping with solar panels. We’ll hear from Madhu Khanna, who made a presentation during a field day on the South Farms—the Energy Farm in fact, right here on campus at the U of I—earlier today. And then we’ll turn our attention to the weather forecast as we close out our time together. Drew Lerner from World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City will join us on this Wednesday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media.
It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org. Right now, you can also find information today in the calendar of events about tomorrow’s crop physiology field day. We hope you will join us on South First Street. All the information about the crop physiology field day is online in our calendar at willag.org.
Announcer: Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason: September corn for the day at $4.36 and 3/4, finished 5 and a half cents lower. December at $4.60, down 5 and a half as well. March contract $4.75 and 3/4, down 5 and 3/4. November beans $11.74 and 3/4, 3 lower on the afternoon. The bean meal down $2.50. The bean oil 48 cents lower. Soft red winter wheat up 4 cents at $6.61 and a quarter in the December. The hard red December at $7.31. It finished 6 and a half cents higher for the day.
01:57 Ag Markets with Ed Usset, University of Minnesota
Todd Gleason: Ed Usset, agricultural economist at the University of Minnesota and with Extension, now joins us to take a look at the marketplace. Thanks for being with us, Ed.
Ed Usset: Thank you for having me.
Todd Gleason: If you could, would you put into historical context next week’s USDA crop production report? It is due out on the 12th.
Ed Usset: A lot of people follow it. I follow it. I like to look at it nationwide, and I like to look at it from my own state of Minnesota. If I can start small, I’ll tell you that the state of Minnesota is doing great. Our corn crop conditions are similar to the best years we’ve had over the last 40 years. When I say best, I look at years where we delivered a yield well above trend, and we’ve got those type of crop conditions in Minnesota now. We got the same thing going on in soybeans, the same thing in wheat. It’s possible with a nice finish that my great state of Minnesota, where we worship Gophers, could deliver record yields in all three crops.
Now, if you look nationwide, it is more of a mixed bag. It’s always more of a mixed bag nationwide. More, I think, speaking to something closer to a trendline yield. USDA’s got what, 183 for corn? And I hear this morning that StoneX came out at 184. I’m not going to disagree with that sort of zone.
Todd Gleason: That is an assessment farmers across Illinois, maybe the eastern Corn Belt, where yields are likely to be much more variable—or at least the crops look that way at the moment—will not accept. I’m wondering what the soybean crop might look like in your area?
Ed Usset: Similar story there. In fact, for Minnesota itself, our soybean conditions are running better than our best years, the average of our best years. And nationwide again, more of a mixed bag. Minnesota is sort of standing out this year, and it’s not going to be that good nationwide. And yet, you know, we have some really good areas going. A week and a half ago, I had a chance to drive through southeastern Minnesota going on a little bike trip with my spouse, and frankly, it was mind-blowing how good these soybeans looked that early, in late July. So, a mixed bag again, but I’m not going to disagree with USDA’s viewpoint on an average yield.
Todd Gleason: USDA currently has the soybean yield across the nation at 153 bushels to the acre, again 183 for the corn. Those numbers will be updated a week from today on Wednesday the 12th. Do you think that a summer high has been achieved in soybeans?
Ed Usset: I think that’s a good guess. Now we’re watching weather. August makes the soybean crop. Tomorrow I’ll be at Farmfest, and I’ll take you back two decades to 2003, a year I went out to Farmfest. I only mention it because it’s in Minnesota, it’s in the first week of August, and I spoke at Farmfest in 2003. As I left the event, I distinctly remember that it was sort of drizzly rain, and I was ruining a nice new pair of shoes. I could see the mud getting on my shoes and it bothered me. What was interesting about that, it was the last time it rained for five weeks.
And of course, if you look at the 2003 corn crop and soybean crop, the corn crop was fine. It was sort of a trendline yield, sort of a normal corn crop in Minnesota and nationwide. The soybean crop was not. I’ve had arguments with weather people; I said 2003 was a drought year. It just came three weeks too late to hurt the corn crop, but it hurt the soybean crop. My point is, I’m not predicting it’s going to stop raining—it doesn’t look like that is the prediction—but it will be driven by weather. And if we can assume a normal August, I think the highs are in.
Todd Gleason: What advice do you have related to bushels that will need to go across the scale at harvest?
Ed Usset: If, in fact, the highs are in, if we can in fact enjoy a normal harvest and harvest pressure, prices will be a little lower by harvest. I do see possibilities after harvest; I see big carries in the market, possibilities for people. Anyone who had the nerve to get some new crop sales done in the May bulge, in the echo that came in the last month in July—if they got some sales off with a hedge-to-arrive or a futures sale, there’s a great opportunity to roll that hedge forward, particularly in corn, from the December to the March, the May, or the July of 2027 contract, and add more to the bottom line.
That doesn’t help you much at harvest. If you’ve got to run it across the scale, we’re probably going to be disappointed at harvest. I don’t think we’re going to see the lows we saw in the last two years that got extremely low. I remind people the December contracts of the last two years both dipped below $4.00 a bushel at harvest, or I should say by late August of each year. Here we are at $4.61. I’m not suggesting we’re going to go under $4.00 a bushel this year. I don’t think the fundamentals are there. But could we go another 20, 30 cents lower? Unfortunately, yes.
Todd Gleason: Thank you very much for taking some time with me today, Ed.
Ed Usset: Okay, Todd. Thank you.
Todd Gleason: Ed Usset is an agricultural economist at the University of Minnesota and with Extension.
08:33 Understanding the Economics Agrivoltaics
Todd Gleason: This morning I joined the Agrivoltaics field day on south campus at the Energy Farm and spoke with Madhu Khanna. She’s the director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment or iSEE at the University of Illinois. I asked her to tell me about the SCAPES project, or Sustainability, Colocating Agricultural and Photovoltaic Electricity Systems, at the University of Illinois. It’s funded by USDA and explores growing crops underneath or between solar panels to maximize land productivity, boost farm profits, and merge renewable energy generation with agriculture. It has been going on now for five years.
Madhu Khanna: The SCAPES grant is now in its fifth year—we’re just starting our sixth and final year of the project. When we started the project, we actually knew very little about agrivoltaics, and even the concept itself was brand new. But since we have been doing this research, we have really learned a lot about how agrivoltaics performs under different environmental and soil conditions, with different types of crops, and with different configurations of panels.
Our project has looked at three different locations in the US: the rain-fed state of Illinois, the semi-arid region of Colorado, and the arid region of Arizona, where different types of crops are grown. In the Midwest, it’s corn and soybeans; in Colorado, it’s essentially grasses; and in Arizona, it is specialty crops that require irrigation. These crops differ in the amount of shade that they need in order to be able to reach their maximum productivity. And so we have learned that really the performance of agrivoltaics, and its impact on yields, differs across these different cropping systems.
Crops that are shade tolerant, like basil, beetroots, do very well under agrivoltaics. Other crops like soybeans and sorghum that require full sun will have a negative impact on their yield, at least under current climatic conditions. And this, of course, changes depending upon where areas where we see more extreme weather and extreme precipitation; there are some benefits to being grown next to panels. So it really varies, depending upon the crops and depending upon the design of the panels, the type of panels that we are using.
Todd Gleason: From the research that has been done, are there comparative advantages from one region to the other that make agrivoltaics, or using a collection of sunshine along with some kind of crop or animal production, more likely?
Madhu Khanna: Yeah, agrivoltaics is likely to be much more productive as a cropping system in areas that are arid, where preserving moisture is critical, and that there is a need to reduce the amount of irrigation that’s required, and also where we have high-value crops. So, things like herbs and greens like lettuce and spinach and so on, where preserving moisture actually improves the quality and reduces the need for irrigation, or vineyards and so on. This is going to be much more productive and profitable in those areas.
Whereas for crops that require full sun, where we need to increase the space between panels in order to be able to move heavy equipment, we’re going to lose both the energy yield that we can get from an acre of land as well as the yield of the crops that we’re going to get per acre of land. And so, that’s where there are going to be greater concerns about the profitability of agrivoltaics.
Todd Gleason: What is the difference between the energy production of a solar farm, a compact commercial solar farm, and corn, ethanol, soybeans, the regular row crop kind of production, energy coming out of those? Have you done research in that area?
Madhu Khanna: Solar energy generation is very efficient as a way to convert solar radiation and generate renewable energy. It’s one of the most efficient ways that we know of to be able to use solar radiation. So, in order to meet our electricity needs looking over the next few decades, based on what is projected, we can meet 40% of our total electricity needs by 2040 or 2050 by converting less than 2% of our cropland to solar energy. Because it is very efficient, and we need a small amount of land to generate it, it can generate a large amount of electricity.
However, the problem is that we need to generate solar energy close to where it is being demanded. We may have a lot of land in the western part of the US, but we cannot generate all our solar energy there and ship it to the other parts. So we need to produce it in various parts, including in the Midwest and the East Coast and so on. And in many of those places, the amount of land that is currently in agriculture is already shrinking. Converting some of that land into solar panels then means that it can make those agricultural communities unviable and lead to infrastructure challenges and so on. So that’s where the concerns about taking land away from agriculture are coming up.
Todd Gleason: That is Madhu Khanna. She is the director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, or iSEE, right here on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois. I spoke with her earlier today at the Agrivoltaics field day on the Energy Farm.
14:58 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc.
Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to the growing regions across the planet and what the weather and climate has been like. Drew Lerner is here now from World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Hi, Drew, thanks for being with us.
Drew Lerner: Yeah, I hope everything’s going good over your way.
Todd Gleason: Kind of staying status quo at this point, and that is a phrase that I think you have been using for the weather across the planet and the growing regions. Why is that the case?
Drew Lerner: Yeah, you know, we are in a big stagnant rut here for the world, and I think it can all be attributed to the El Niño phenomenon. It is such a large event and so significant that it is controlling certainly the tropical weather, and there’s an oscillation that occurs in the tropics called Madden-Julian Oscillation. It has really put that phenomenon into what looks like an infinite loop where it does not rain well in southern parts of Indonesia, and it continues to restrict some of the rain in other tropical areas of the world. But it seems like it’s having some influence on the mid-latitudes too, because we have not seen any serious deviation in any of the major mid-latitude production areas in several weeks, and it can be tied back to the start of the El Niño event. So I believe that it is having some influence in that respect.
If we start looking at some of these places, you know, China’s had a very good year overall. Probably the only thing that’s been threatening to China is it’s been a little bit too wet in the south, but the main corn and soybean areas are getting plenty of moisture, and I don’t think there’s been any serious temperature anomalies that have occurred. I think they’re on the right track there to do fairly well. Some of the rice areas in the south have probably been a little bit too wet. Now we do have a rather large typhoon that’s headed for China, and that might upset the apple cart here a little bit. It should come inland this weekend; it will be a large event producing some flooding rain over a fair amount of eastern China. So that’ll be something that will be watched, but really China is in the same boat today than it was two or three, four weeks ago.
And we can say the same thing about India. The only thing I want to say about India though, is that we are going to see some more traditional El Niño influence starting next Monday. And from next Monday, for the following two full weeks, India is going to see a below normal precipitation bias once again. It’s going to be more notable this time around. They’ve done really well with rainfall in recent weeks, but I think they’re gonna turn a corner here. It’s gonna get a little bit more interesting in that country.
Todd Gleason: Can you tell me a little bit more about Indonesia itself as it’s related to the dryness? This is a place that produces an awful lot of palm oil, and August is a month that can drive soybean prices, particularly if there is enough dry weather in Indonesia through the fall months. What do you think of that crop, or at least the weather there?
Drew Lerner: Most of the short-rooted crops in Indonesia, that would be like corn and sugar cane and some rice too for that matter, those crops are already being hurt by the below normal precipitation that has occurred for at least two months now. The topsoil and subsoil are running short to very short. But the tree crops, you know, the oil palm, the rubber, the coffee and cocoa and coconut, all those deeper-rooted trees have the ability to tap into some deeper subsoil moisture, so they have not been impacted yet.
But this El Niño is only two months old, and it’s got four more months to go before it reaches its peak. And if it continues at the level of intensity that it’s at today, which is the prediction, we will most likely see stagnant conditions in Indonesia, and so these tree crops will eventually run low on moisture. So as you ask about the autumn season, these next two or three months, we will see a steady decline in that deep-rooted moisture level and crop stress will evolve. This is one of the reasons why when El Niño occurs, oil palm is not usually impacted in the first few months, but usually something like four to six, seven months down the road, it usually has a notable decline in production, and that’s the road we’re on.
Todd Gleason: Okay, so now turn your attention to the growing regions in the United States. Starting in the Northwestern Corn Belt, there had been concern. I don’t know whether that has been alleviated by the weekend rains and early rains this week, and or what it might look like going forward.
Drew Lerner: The weekend rain event was certainly impressive, and so was the cool air that came in behind it. I don’t know if you knew it or not, but up in part of Canada’s Saskatchewan crop areas, the temperature got down to 33 degrees here a couple of mornings ago. And we saw upper 30s in northern Montana, and it’s been pretty chilly. Yesterday the highs in Nebraska were in the 60s. So that cooldown has really helped a little bit for those areas that did not get good rainfall over the weekend. Now those areas are concentrated mostly on a small pocket in southeastern South Dakota, northeastern Nebraska, northwestern Iowa, and part of southwestern Minnesota.
That area is still pretty darn dry and needs to see some significant moisture. But because it did get so cool, the crops are getting a little bit of a break, they’re kind of on hold at the moment, but they still need that moisture replenishment. And we don’t have high volume rain headed into that area, so it will continue to be an issue. In about four or five days it’ll start heating up again up that way. I don’t expect excessive heat for another week to a week and a half, but if they don’t get some significant rain in that time frame we will be looking at a greater degree of stress and more pressure on some of that production.
But the rest of the surrounding area did get relief and they’re doing okay today. It looks like there may be some timely showers that come on, but this is summer, and it’s hard to get high volume rain events to occur in that part of the world during the middle of the summer. So I am thinking we’re probably gonna continue to limp along, we’ve got a lot of August still ahead of us. Now it is still dry to the northwest of that, in canola and wheat country in central and southwestern parts of Canada’s prairies and the northwest US plains, Montana and parts of North Dakota. All that region has not seen good rain and probably will not, and so they, like western Europe, are probably gonna continue to see a dry bias for quite a little while yet.
Todd Gleason: How about Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska?
Drew Lerner: Now that’s a different side of the coin, and certainly I think conditions in those areas is much better. Iowa’s had a number of rain events, except in the northwest, as I mentioned before. The east and south is probably doing fairly well. Illinois I think’s had some timely rains, Wisconsin certainly has in parts of Minnesota. As we go forward through the next 10 days to two weeks, we will get some timely rainfall to occur in all of that corridor, and the rest of the Midwest for that matter. So it’s really down to just those few counties in the northwest there that we talked about that have the biggest issue with dryness. Now we could get into some trouble down the road, but at the moment I don’t see it, and so I think for now it’s a good status quo environment I believe.
Todd Gleason: On that note, thank you much, I appreciate it.
Drew Lerner: Have a good day.
Todd Gleason: Drew Lerner is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. He joined us on this Wednesday edition of the Closing Market Report. It did come to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org. I’m Extension’s Todd Gleason.
The August 5, 2026, edition of the Closing Market Report provides a comprehensive overview of commodity markets, sustainable energy integration, and agricultural weather. The program begins with a review of daily market prices before transitioning to an interview with agricultural economist Ed Usset, who analyzes crop conditions ahead of the upcoming USDA production report and offers pricing strategies for the approaching harvest. Next, Madhu Khanna discusses the SCAPES project and the economic viability of agrivoltaics, explaining how shade tolerance and regional climates dictate the success of co-locating crops with solar panels. The episode concludes with a detailed weather outlook from meteorologist Drew Lerner, who examines El Niño's impact on global growing regions, including Asia and the U.S. Corn Belt.
01:57 Ag Markets with Ed Usset, University of Minnesota
08:33 Understanding the Economics Agrivoltaics
14:58 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc.
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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report for the fifth day of August 2026. I’m Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.
Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Ed Usset, he is an agricultural economist at the University of Minnesota. Greg Johnson is away from the office for the afternoon. We’ll take a look at agrivoltaics, or the practice of intercropping with solar panels. We’ll hear from Madhu Khanna, who made a presentation during a field day on the South Farms—the Energy Farm in fact, right here on campus at the U of I—earlier today. And then we’ll turn our attention to the weather forecast as we close out our time together. Drew Lerner from World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City will join us on this Wednesday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media.
It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org. Right now, you can also find information today in the calendar of events about tomorrow’s crop physiology field day. We hope you will join us on South First Street. All the information about the crop physiology field day is online in our calendar at willag.org.
Announcer: Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason: September corn for the day at $4.36 and 3/4, finished 5 and a half cents lower. December at $4.60, down 5 and a half as well. March contract $4.75 and 3/4, down 5 and 3/4. November beans $11.74 and 3/4, 3 lower on the afternoon. The bean meal down $2.50. The bean oil 48 cents lower. Soft red winter wheat up 4 cents at $6.61 and a quarter in the December. The hard red December at $7.31. It finished 6 and a half cents higher for the day.
01:57 Ag Markets with Ed Usset, University of Minnesota
Todd Gleason: Ed Usset, agricultural economist at the University of Minnesota and with Extension, now joins us to take a look at the marketplace. Thanks for being with us, Ed.
Ed Usset: Thank you for having me.
Todd Gleason: If you could, would you put into historical context next week’s USDA crop production report? It is due out on the 12th.
Ed Usset: A lot of people follow it. I follow it. I like to look at it nationwide, and I like to look at it from my own state of Minnesota. If I can start small, I’ll tell you that the state of Minnesota is doing great. Our corn crop conditions are similar to the best years we’ve had over the last 40 years. When I say best, I look at years where we delivered a yield well above trend, and we’ve got those type of crop conditions in Minnesota now. We got the same thing going on in soybeans, the same thing in wheat. It’s possible with a nice finish that my great state of Minnesota, where we worship Gophers, could deliver record yields in all three crops.
Now, if you look nationwide, it is more of a mixed bag. It’s always more of a mixed bag nationwide. More, I think, speaking to something closer to a trendline yield. USDA’s got what, 183 for corn? And I hear this morning that StoneX came out at 184. I’m not going to disagree with that sort of zone.
Todd Gleason: That is an assessment farmers across Illinois, maybe the eastern Corn Belt, where yields are likely to be much more variable—or at least the crops look that way at the moment—will not accept. I’m wondering what the soybean crop might look like in your area?
Ed Usset: Similar story there. In fact, for Minnesota itself, our soybean conditions are running better than our best years, the average of our best years. And nationwide again, more of a mixed bag. Minnesota is sort of standing out this year, and it’s not going to be that good nationwide. And yet, you know, we have some really good areas going. A week and a half ago, I had a chance to drive through southeastern Minnesota going on a little bike trip with my spouse, and frankly, it was mind-blowing how good these soybeans looked that early, in late July. So, a mixed bag again, but I’m not going to disagree with USDA’s viewpoint on an average yield.
Todd Gleason: USDA currently has the soybean yield across the nation at 153 bushels to the acre, again 183 for the corn. Those numbers will be updated a week from today on Wednesday the 12th. Do you think that a summer high has been achieved in soybeans?
Ed Usset: I think that’s a good guess. Now we’re watching weather. August makes the soybean crop. Tomorrow I’ll be at Farmfest, and I’ll take you back two decades to 2003, a year I went out to Farmfest. I only mention it because it’s in Minnesota, it’s in the first week of August, and I spoke at Farmfest in 2003. As I left the event, I distinctly remember that it was sort of drizzly rain, and I was ruining a nice new pair of shoes. I could see the mud getting on my shoes and it bothered me. What was interesting about that, it was the last time it rained for five weeks.
And of course, if you look at the 2003 corn crop and soybean crop, the corn crop was fine. It was sort of a trendline yield, sort of a normal corn crop in Minnesota and nationwide. The soybean crop was not. I’ve had arguments with weather people; I said 2003 was a drought year. It just came three weeks too late to hurt the corn crop, but it hurt the soybean crop. My point is, I’m not predicting it’s going to stop raining—it doesn’t look like that is the prediction—but it will be driven by weather. And if we can assume a normal August, I think the highs are in.
Todd Gleason: What advice do you have related to bushels that will need to go across the scale at harvest?
Ed Usset: If, in fact, the highs are in, if we can in fact enjoy a normal harvest and harvest pressure, prices will be a little lower by harvest. I do see possibilities after harvest; I see big carries in the market, possibilities for people. Anyone who had the nerve to get some new crop sales done in the May bulge, in the echo that came in the last month in July—if they got some sales off with a hedge-to-arrive or a futures sale, there’s a great opportunity to roll that hedge forward, particularly in corn, from the December to the March, the May, or the July of 2027 contract, and add more to the bottom line.
That doesn’t help you much at harvest. If you’ve got to run it across the scale, we’re probably going to be disappointed at harvest. I don’t think we’re going to see the lows we saw in the last two years that got extremely low. I remind people the December contracts of the last two years both dipped below $4.00 a bushel at harvest, or I should say by late August of each year. Here we are at $4.61. I’m not suggesting we’re going to go under $4.00 a bushel this year. I don’t think the fundamentals are there. But could we go another 20, 30 cents lower? Unfortunately, yes.
Todd Gleason: Thank you very much for taking some time with me today, Ed.
Ed Usset: Okay, Todd. Thank you.
Todd Gleason: Ed Usset is an agricultural economist at the University of Minnesota and with Extension.
08:33 Understanding the Economics Agrivoltaics
Todd Gleason: This morning I joined the Agrivoltaics field day on south campus at the Energy Farm and spoke with Madhu Khanna. She’s the director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment or iSEE at the University of Illinois. I asked her to tell me about the SCAPES project, or Sustainability, Colocating Agricultural and Photovoltaic Electricity Systems, at the University of Illinois. It’s funded by USDA and explores growing crops underneath or between solar panels to maximize land productivity, boost farm profits, and merge renewable energy generation with agriculture. It has been going on now for five years.
Madhu Khanna: The SCAPES grant is now in its fifth year—we’re just starting our sixth and final year of the project. When we started the project, we actually knew very little about agrivoltaics, and even the concept itself was brand new. But since we have been doing this research, we have really learned a lot about how agrivoltaics performs under different environmental and soil conditions, with different types of crops, and with different configurations of panels.
Our project has looked at three different locations in the US: the rain-fed state of Illinois, the semi-arid region of Colorado, and the arid region of Arizona, where different types of crops are grown. In the Midwest, it’s corn and soybeans; in Colorado, it’s essentially grasses; and in Arizona, it is specialty crops that require irrigation. These crops differ in the amount of shade that they need in order to be able to reach their maximum productivity. And so we have learned that really the performance of agrivoltaics, and its impact on yields, differs across these different cropping systems.
Crops that are shade tolerant, like basil, beetroots, do very well under agrivoltaics. Other crops like soybeans and sorghum that require full sun will have a negative impact on their yield, at least under current climatic conditions. And this, of course, changes depending upon where areas where we see more extreme weather and extreme precipitation; there are some benefits to being grown next to panels. So it really varies, depending upon the crops and depending upon the design of the panels, the type of panels that we are using.
Todd Gleason: From the research that has been done, are there comparative advantages from one region to the other that make agrivoltaics, or using a collection of sunshine along with some kind of crop or animal production, more likely?
Madhu Khanna: Yeah, agrivoltaics is likely to be much more productive as a cropping system in areas that are arid, where preserving moisture is critical, and that there is a need to reduce the amount of irrigation that’s required, and also where we have high-value crops. So, things like herbs and greens like lettuce and spinach and so on, where preserving moisture actually improves the quality and reduces the need for irrigation, or vineyards and so on. This is going to be much more productive and profitable in those areas.
Whereas for crops that require full sun, where we need to increase the space between panels in order to be able to move heavy equipment, we’re going to lose both the energy yield that we can get from an acre of land as well as the yield of the crops that we’re going to get per acre of land. And so, that’s where there are going to be greater concerns about the profitability of agrivoltaics.
Todd Gleason: What is the difference between the energy production of a solar farm, a compact commercial solar farm, and corn, ethanol, soybeans, the regular row crop kind of production, energy coming out of those? Have you done research in that area?
Madhu Khanna: Solar energy generation is very efficient as a way to convert solar radiation and generate renewable energy. It’s one of the most efficient ways that we know of to be able to use solar radiation. So, in order to meet our electricity needs looking over the next few decades, based on what is projected, we can meet 40% of our total electricity needs by 2040 or 2050 by converting less than 2% of our cropland to solar energy. Because it is very efficient, and we need a small amount of land to generate it, it can generate a large amount of electricity.
However, the problem is that we need to generate solar energy close to where it is being demanded. We may have a lot of land in the western part of the US, but we cannot generate all our solar energy there and ship it to the other parts. So we need to produce it in various parts, including in the Midwest and the East Coast and so on. And in many of those places, the amount of land that is currently in agriculture is already shrinking. Converting some of that land into solar panels then means that it can make those agricultural communities unviable and lead to infrastructure challenges and so on. So that’s where the concerns about taking land away from agriculture are coming up.
Todd Gleason: That is Madhu Khanna. She is the director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, or iSEE, right here on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois. I spoke with her earlier today at the Agrivoltaics field day on the Energy Farm.
14:58 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc.
Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to the growing regions across the planet and what the weather and climate has been like. Drew Lerner is here now from World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Hi, Drew, thanks for being with us.
Drew Lerner: Yeah, I hope everything’s going good over your way.
Todd Gleason: Kind of staying status quo at this point, and that is a phrase that I think you have been using for the weather across the planet and the growing regions. Why is that the case?
Drew Lerner: Yeah, you know, we are in a big stagnant rut here for the world, and I think it can all be attributed to the El Niño phenomenon. It is such a large event and so significant that it is controlling certainly the tropical weather, and there’s an oscillation that occurs in the tropics called Madden-Julian Oscillation. It has really put that phenomenon into what looks like an infinite loop where it does not rain well in southern parts of Indonesia, and it continues to restrict some of the rain in other tropical areas of the world. But it seems like it’s having some influence on the mid-latitudes too, because we have not seen any serious deviation in any of the major mid-latitude production areas in several weeks, and it can be tied back to the start of the El Niño event. So I believe that it is having some influence in that respect.
If we start looking at some of these places, you know, China’s had a very good year overall. Probably the only thing that’s been threatening to China is it’s been a little bit too wet in the south, but the main corn and soybean areas are getting plenty of moisture, and I don’t think there’s been any serious temperature anomalies that have occurred. I think they’re on the right track there to do fairly well. Some of the rice areas in the south have probably been a little bit too wet. Now we do have a rather large typhoon that’s headed for China, and that might upset the apple cart here a little bit. It should come inland this weekend; it will be a large event producing some flooding rain over a fair amount of eastern China. So that’ll be something that will be watched, but really China is in the same boat today than it was two or three, four weeks ago.
And we can say the same thing about India. The only thing I want to say about India though, is that we are going to see some more traditional El Niño influence starting next Monday. And from next Monday, for the following two full weeks, India is going to see a below normal precipitation bias once again. It’s going to be more notable this time around. They’ve done really well with rainfall in recent weeks, but I think they’re gonna turn a corner here. It’s gonna get a little bit more interesting in that country.
Todd Gleason: Can you tell me a little bit more about Indonesia itself as it’s related to the dryness? This is a place that produces an awful lot of palm oil, and August is a month that can drive soybean prices, particularly if there is enough dry weather in Indonesia through the fall months. What do you think of that crop, or at least the weather there?
Drew Lerner: Most of the short-rooted crops in Indonesia, that would be like corn and sugar cane and some rice too for that matter, those crops are already being hurt by the below normal precipitation that has occurred for at least two months now. The topsoil and subsoil are running short to very short. But the tree crops, you know, the oil palm, the rubber, the coffee and cocoa and coconut, all those deeper-rooted trees have the ability to tap into some deeper subsoil moisture, so they have not been impacted yet.
But this El Niño is only two months old, and it’s got four more months to go before it reaches its peak. And if it continues at the level of intensity that it’s at today, which is the prediction, we will most likely see stagnant conditions in Indonesia, and so these tree crops will eventually run low on moisture. So as you ask about the autumn season, these next two or three months, we will see a steady decline in that deep-rooted moisture level and crop stress will evolve. This is one of the reasons why when El Niño occurs, oil palm is not usually impacted in the first few months, but usually something like four to six, seven months down the road, it usually has a notable decline in production, and that’s the road we’re on.
Todd Gleason: Okay, so now turn your attention to the growing regions in the United States. Starting in the Northwestern Corn Belt, there had been concern. I don’t know whether that has been alleviated by the weekend rains and early rains this week, and or what it might look like going forward.
Drew Lerner: The weekend rain event was certainly impressive, and so was the cool air that came in behind it. I don’t know if you knew it or not, but up in part of Canada’s Saskatchewan crop areas, the temperature got down to 33 degrees here a couple of mornings ago. And we saw upper 30s in northern Montana, and it’s been pretty chilly. Yesterday the highs in Nebraska were in the 60s. So that cooldown has really helped a little bit for those areas that did not get good rainfall over the weekend. Now those areas are concentrated mostly on a small pocket in southeastern South Dakota, northeastern Nebraska, northwestern Iowa, and part of southwestern Minnesota.
That area is still pretty darn dry and needs to see some significant moisture. But because it did get so cool, the crops are getting a little bit of a break, they’re kind of on hold at the moment, but they still need that moisture replenishment. And we don’t have high volume rain headed into that area, so it will continue to be an issue. In about four or five days it’ll start heating up again up that way. I don’t expect excessive heat for another week to a week and a half, but if they don’t get some significant rain in that time frame we will be looking at a greater degree of stress and more pressure on some of that production.
But the rest of the surrounding area did get relief and they’re doing okay today. It looks like there may be some timely showers that come on, but this is summer, and it’s hard to get high volume rain events to occur in that part of the world during the middle of the summer. So I am thinking we’re probably gonna continue to limp along, we’ve got a lot of August still ahead of us. Now it is still dry to the northwest of that, in canola and wheat country in central and southwestern parts of Canada’s prairies and the northwest US plains, Montana and parts of North Dakota. All that region has not seen good rain and probably will not, and so they, like western Europe, are probably gonna continue to see a dry bias for quite a little while yet.
Todd Gleason: How about Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska?
Drew Lerner: Now that’s a different side of the coin, and certainly I think conditions in those areas is much better. Iowa’s had a number of rain events, except in the northwest, as I mentioned before. The east and south is probably doing fairly well. Illinois I think’s had some timely rains, Wisconsin certainly has in parts of Minnesota. As we go forward through the next 10 days to two weeks, we will get some timely rainfall to occur in all of that corridor, and the rest of the Midwest for that matter. So it’s really down to just those few counties in the northwest there that we talked about that have the biggest issue with dryness. Now we could get into some trouble down the road, but at the moment I don’t see it, and so I think for now it’s a good status quo environment I believe.
Todd Gleason: On that note, thank you much, I appreciate it.
Drew Lerner: Have a good day.
Todd Gleason: Drew Lerner is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. He joined us on this Wednesday edition of the Closing Market Report. It did come to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org. I’m Extension’s Todd Gleason.